Falling Away From Me
by pandorathexplora
Summary: Lilith has captured Dean and Sam goes to save him, although she has plans of her own for Sammy. Hurt!Dean Protective!Sam


**As always, this one started with an image I had in my head where Sam kicks butt and saves Dean. But who doesn't love some limp Dean, am I right?**

**Okay, so obviously this is another Protective Sam story. It came out longer than I wanted, and I may add more to it, so let me know if you want to see more. Otherwise, I might keep it as a stand alone.**

**Disclaimer: Though I wish I did, I don't own Supernatural. **

Falling Away From Me

"Petulant boy!" Razel spit through the narrows of his clenched teeth. Gripping the middle of Sam's shirt with one hand, the demon lifted the hunter up and against the warehouse's metal railing.

Dean watched the battle unfold above his head, although he could barely lift it himself. Lilith had tortured him for hours upon days. All feeling had left his arms as they were chained with barbed wire against a make-shift crucifix of steel and mesh caging.

"Sammy," Dean whispered. "Trap." But Sam would never hear him, and he continued to fight Lilith's hired help in the metallic skies above.

"Shut up!" Lilith snarled loud enough for Dean to hear but low enough to not interrupt the battle above. With a firm hand, she shook Dean's entire frame when it came down upon his already bloodied cheek. Gone were the sarcastic comments and slowly calculated words. Lilith had long abandoned the ritualistic need to parlay with her prey.

All that mattered now was this one plan. Just a few more minutes, and the gears would be set in motion. She looked up hungrily at Sam who continued to fight against Razel, her demonic muscle-for-hire that would surely accomplish this one simple task. Razel knew his orders and, as Lilith licked her top lip in anticipation, her eyes lit up to see Sam being pushed to the edge.

All according to plan.

"You bitch," Dean coughed. "Just kill me already."

Dean's voice was louder now, echoing across the empty arena, bouncing off wooden boxes that had long been forgotten in the abandoned warehouse. Outside, the crumbling artifice might have looked like any other piece of industrial Americana. Steel piping exposed themselves into the open air around the industrial park, but inside was something not as natural. Inside this warehouse, where all demons of modern day now imparted their worst designs on human nature, a cruel plan was hatched and ready to be set loose upon the world.

"Shhh," Lilith dismissed Dean's indignation with a nonchalant hand, eyes still set upon the hand-to-hand entertainment above. Sam was now teetering ever so close to the railing's edge. Razel clearly had the upper hand, dangling Sam's body vertically over the target.

Lilith's mouth curled into a smile as her eyes followed the natural line created by Sam's struggling form. Despite the bruising and pain, Dean's eyes widened in horror as he saw what Lilith's eyesight closed around.

Twenty feet beneath Sam and Razel's battle sat a green, metallic vat. It had the same size as one of those above ground pools that so many people purchase to say that they have a pool, only to discover the investment is large enough for about thirty minutes of tossing a beach ball back and forth, followed by the question: "Now what?"

Dean had not noticed the vat in the warehouse before, as its sickly copper green hue tended to fade into the background of other miscellaneous warehouse items of wooden crates and forgotten forklifts. But now, the vat came to life, breathing out snake-like swirls of mist that rose up like a bubbling cauldron.

Dean's eyes darted in Lilith's direction who, not surprisingly, was the source of this turbulence.

"Nomine aquae, cruentus adorenus…," Lilith's lips chanted at a volume barely above a whisper. Lilith's host body shook with the power of the words. Her blond curls rose, defying gravity, as the power of the incantation escalated around her. In turn, the vat bubbled to life, and Dean could see now that those swirls of steam were now mixing with a splatter of red and sparks of fire beneath them.

"Dear, God," he mouthed, as his mind twisted around the terrifying truth of the vat's contents.

"Is that blood, you psycho bitch?!" Dean's voice was now powered enough to push beyond the pain in his ribcage, a guttural instinctive voice fueled by anger and fear.

Lilith and Sam's head both snapped in Dean's direction. Even the demon Razel, who still had a firm hold on Sam's body, stopped to look in Dean's direction.

Sam saw the distraction as his opportunity and sent a powerful kick directly onto the demon's shin. Demon or not, the hosts all had the same human weaknesses and could be taken down with a few sharp kicks to several key pressure points. Loosening his grip on Sam, the demon's eyes opened in surprise as he was met with another sharp upper-cut, this time to his nose.

"Shit!" the demon recoiled, human hands rising to cover his bleeding face, but Sam didn't let up. While the monster had instinctively covered his face, protecting his eyes, Sam found his exposed stomach, and gave him a sharp blow to his side, attacking with relentless force as the demon continued to put up the defense.

"Get him, Sammy!" Dean said, smirking at Lilith who was now walking towards him with purposeful, commanding steps. The power from the incantation still cackled in the air as she stopped one foot directly in front of him, her eyes white with controlled rage.

"I thought I told you to shut," Lilith raised her hand, and placed it delicately on Dean's forehead, summoning up a wave of energy, "up."

The amount of electricity that coursed through Dean's body was enough to blow out the fluorescent lighting above them. Dean felt his muscles clench, his stomach rising and fighting against its need to hurl everything inside him. Unfortunately, Lilith had tortured him so much with the same current of energy that nothing was left to vomit.

When Lilith finally let go, Dean's body shot forward, the barbed wires around his arms sinking ever deeper into his flesh. Biting his tongue, Dean struggled to keep his body from convulsing, his stomach still heaving as he fought to speak.

"You hurt, Sam, and I'll— " Dean sputtered through the ear-splitting migraine and muscle spasms.

"Oh, I'm not going to hurt him," Lilith cut him off. Lifting Dean's head with one finger, she grinned. "I'm going to heal him."

Lilith's smile brightened as she saw the look of utter confusion on Dean's face, his eyes searching each of hers for answers.

"Oh, they'll come in time. You'll find the truth. Right now, just watch as your brother is re-awakened. Consider it a," Lilith searched the air for the right word, "baptism of sorts."

Lilith turned around to face the vat again, raising her arms up into the sky with her head bowed low, continuing her Latin chant.

Dean's head spun, searching for what Lilith meant. Could this be a seal?

"Jesus Christ," he proclaimed in horror. He had failed to hear Lilith's incantation before, and this time he listened. He craned his neck, searching his memory banks for the Latin words his father forced them to learn at a young age. The dead language came to life in his mind, and within a few seconds, Dean discovered the sickening truth.

"Demon blood?" Dean said to himself, untangling the Latin words. What could Lilith want with a vat of demon blood? None of this made any sense!

Meanwhile in the building's upper decks, Razel had taken advantage of his host body's quickness and had pinned Sam to the floor.

"Sssssso not what I expected, Ssssammy," the demon hissed, a sticky line of venomous drool dangling from his lips and coming dangerously close to touching Sam's cheek. Slowly, the venom retracted into the demon's lips and Razel eased closer to Sam's face, animal-like in his graces. Taking short sniffs, Razel analyzed his prey's body while making sure that Sam's legs and feet stayed pinned to the floor.

"Hmmmm. Been a while since your last fix, huh?" the demon giggled at his findings. Lilith had chosen Razel for the mere fact that he could determine demonic blood from a mile away with scent alone. With one short evaluation, Razel had discovered that this boy beneath him had made the stupid mistake of coming into battle without any _ammunition_.

"I don't need anything else to take down low-level pieces of shit like you," Sam sneered, spitting in his face.

"Oh really?" Razel barely blinked, rubbing his now wet cheek with the cloth on his shoulder and appearing more wolf-like. As he did, Sam turned his head quickly to see if Dean was okay, and finding that Dean was still conscious, he brought his attention back to the distracted demon.

"Really," Sam responded, closing his eyes and concentrating his will against the weight on top of him. Instantly, the demon was thrown back by Sam's invisible onslaught, a metal railing stopping his foray into the nearby wall. Sam had meant to push him through the concrete, but the demon had been correct on one thing.

Sam was weak. He had refused to drink any more of Ruby's blood before coming out to save Dean. He was determined to prove to himself that he was no addict, despite Chuck's warnings. He could do this alone. He was a smart enough hunter and powerful enough on his own without the need for any more temptation.

But as the demon dusted itself off and rose to a full stature, Sam began to have second thoughts.

"That was fun," Razel taunted, cracking his neck from side to side and catching an interesting scene from the corner of his eye. "But not as much fun as he's having."

Sam's attention immediately turned to that of his brother, who was struggling to breathe. Lilith appeared to be conjuring up a storm beneath them with one hand outstretched to a large vat whose contents bubbled underneath a very thin tarp. With her other hand outstretched towards Dean, Lilith seemed to be bringing Dean to the edge of life itself.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, shooting up to his full height and grabbing onto the metal railing. All battles with this low-level demon were forgotten as Sam's mind was flooded with only one thought: Save Dean.

He gripped the railing, ready to heave himself over and jump two stories down in order to get closer to the poor creature that dared hurt his brother.

To his horror, Sam found that he couldn't move his hands. They felt glued to the railing and turning his attention back to the demon, Sam muttered under his breath when he realized what the supposed low-level demon was doing to him.

Razel stood, casually, with one hand out, mentally cementing Sam's hands to the rail.

"Not so fast, Sammy," the demon cooed. Sam struggled to free himself from the railing's grip, uncertain as to how Razel was so strong.

Calmly and slowly, the demon approached Sam's captive state, wishing to hold onto this moment forever. The sound of his footsteps echoed along the metal grating. He only wished that his master, Lilith, could see what a good job he was doing. Unfortunately, she was too busy setting the plan in motion now. Yes, it was so close.

With an inhuman speed, the demon lashed out and gripped fiercely on the back of Sam's neck, a sickening voice dripping from his too close lips.

"You see that, Sammy?" the demon said, focusing on keeping Sam's hands and feet locked into place, but certain that Sam had a clear view of the action below.

"That's your lord, paving the way down there…for you!" Razel's voice echoed in Sam's head. "She really does have good intentions. Just like you."

Sam could feel his blood boiling and was unsure if the steam in the air was coming from the vat or from his own body.

"And over to your left," the demon continued, pinching Sam's neck and forcing him to look down at Dean's weakened form, "is an offering."

Sam's knuckles whitened as he was forced to watch Dean's torment. Shackled against gray, Dean dripped a sickening amount of blood onto the floor beneath him. Liquids of all sorts littered his feet and coughed out of his system.

Sam's vision tunneled around his big brother, his protector, the one that always came to save him from the monsters under the bed and in his head. Dean. Now, he was something resembling a rag doll, submissive and powerless against a demon that was too cowardly to even take him when they were together.

No, Lilith had chosen to take Dean while Sam wasn't looking. With all her power and supposed bravado, Lilith had stooped to taking Dean while they slept, leaving only a smiley face and a note that read: "Come and get me, Sammy."

Now, on the warehouse's cracked floors, a fiery demonic voice boomed her sultry song in a language saved for the gods.

"_Dark from dark, blood from blood, true god from true god,_" Lilith spoke in Latin, "_I offer this to give to the other."_

The vat's contents blistered and crashed in response, while Dean curled over in pain. Something was gnawing at his insides, as if an inner beast was struggling to burst out of his heart and join the vat itself.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, his fury rising. He tried to channel up all the energy inside of him to fight off Razel's control over him, but the last blast had drained him. He was powerless to stop it as Razel's claws sank deeper into his neck.

"Quite the show!" Razel continued to hiss into his ear.

"Gah!" Sam couldn't resist him. To his horror, Razel was far too strong and he shuddered as the demon was now gripping his head in one hand and pushing his eyes down to watch his older brother.

"He's dying for you, Sam. An offering for you, Sam," the demon could barely breathe from excitement, his voice falling on Sam's name like bullets. "The time is now, Sam."

A sting of sweat and tears pierced Sam's vision as Dean felt an equal sting of claw-like grips around his midsection. Lilith's presence grew with a blue fire around her, drawing up energy within herself and from the offering that hung next to her. She channeled Dean's essence, pulling it into herself and modified it into her darkest desires. Forming his life around the tips of her fingers, she pushed it like so much fuel into the blood that raged within the metal vat.

Dean felt the last bits of his life wrench out of him.

Sam watched from above, experiencing death.

In a brief moment, Dean raised his head with a praying man's eyes and saw Sam instead.

"Sam," Dean whispered, his head falling to breathe his last.

In slow motion, Sam felt his entire body fall limp, numb to the brutal pressure that was now forced into his back as Razel lifted and heaved his form over the railing.

And quietly, Sam fell.

With each passing second, Sam only knew defeat, unaware that the walls were rising, unaware that Razel looked on from above in triumph, unaware that Lilith watched him plummet into the bloody vat below.

Finally unaware that he didn't even fight it.

A single voice broke through the void. _"Not too much, Sam." _

Ruby.

The memory tore through him. His first moments with the demon-witch when he had felt the blood's power. What coursed through him met her gift of blood with welcome arms. Strange at first, he drank and it filled him with raw energy and a need. A need for more.

Always more, but never enough.

And now he was choking on it. The memory snapped to a close as Sam's eyes shot open and burned with the realization that he was covered in the very thing he'd desired, but could never have. The fire-like liquid embraced him, sinking into his skin that was now aflame with new sensitivities.

His muscles instinctively reacted to the submersion, legs and arms kicked to reach the surface, but a stronger force kept him pinned to the floor. Sam didn't want this.

He never wanted it.

But now he had no choice.

He opened his mouth and choked on the rivers of blood that greedily swam into him. Every drop reacted with a life of its own, hungrily seeping into his eyes, mouth and ears. The sensation was sickeningly natural. As if this was what was meant to be from the beginning.

Truly, this is what He'd always wanted.

Lilith clapped her hands victoriously as she watched the young hunter sink into her prepared vat, the splash of blood coating her entire front side.

"Oh dammit, and I just got this thing cleaned," she said, looking down at her stained blouse.

_Small sacrifices for the greater good_, she mused, but her thoughts were interrupted by the eerie stilling of the waves from the blood's surface.

Taking a few cautious steps towards the blood basin, Lilith looked up to her assistant who was waiting eagerly for a sign. Razel returned her smile with a nod of understanding. The last seal was broken, at last.

Lilith hesitated before finding the right words.

"Oh Sam," she sang, "Are you still in there?"

Somewhere, miles away, Sam felt someone call his name through his suspended state. A tiny ripple of a sound that began as a whisper, crawled through him like the blood, tugging at his mind and escaping into his lungs.

Another sound. A question, this time. It entered into Sam's ears, newly attuned to the faintest buzz of light above, and it pushed its way down into parts of his mind that once remained dormant. Sam twitched as the question flittered through the recesses of his body, awakening connections and sparking a series of synaptic contractions in and around each muscular fiber, strengthening him -- filling him with more power than he could even handle.

Sam felt a tightening of each pressure point in his body, equal pain and pleasure, as the blood's power and the taunting words in his flesh came together as one.

_Lilith_.

The energy wrapped itself around him, threatening to destroy him if Sam didn't learn to contain it. But Sam was a hunter and his natural instinct to survive took over. Still submerged, Sam tightened his fists in attempt to keep the raw energy from exploding out, pushing it down until the right time. It pulsated frighteningly strong from his heart out into his extremities, and his thoughts were no longer webs of confusion or doubt.

Sam had one mission.

_Avenge Dean._

Lilith brought her head over the vat's rim, peering out of curiosity.

"What's taking so long?" she whined to nobody in particular. The ritual went as planned. She had fulfilled Lucifer's final wishes, submerging a man pure of heart into the darkest pits of hell. With a forced baptism in Lucifer's own blood, Sam would rise as the anti-christ - the true lord to Lucifer's armies.

Instantly, Sam answered her. A single hand shot up out of the murky red depths, snatching at her throat. Tightening his grip around her air passages, Sam lifted himself up out of the bloody vat and forced Lilith to watch the horrific rise of Satan's son before her. With inhuman grace, Sam pulled himself out of the vat and onto the concrete, all while keeping Lilith's neck in his grip.

"Surprised to see me?" Sam said, every part of him fighting not to rip Lilith's head off right then and there.

Lilith's terror grew as she suddenly realized that Sam was not immediately on her side as Lucifer said he'd be. She fell to her knees, quivering at the sheer power that came off of Sam's body in waves. Truly, he had the power of Satan's son, now, but his eyes showed no twinge of dark deceit or evil that a demon's eyes should.

Instead, they were a typical hazel – a human hue that testified to Sam's soul.

To her utter disbelief, Sam had somehow retained his humanity but now had the powers of hell at his command – a petrifying combination for her cause and her kind.

"Sam, I --," Lilith choked. Sam's grip around her neck barely allowed for speech.

"You what? Wanted me to become like you? Was that your plan?" Sam's nails dug into Lilith's neck, drawing a small trickle of blood that met with her already stained shirt.

Lilith's eyes narrowed as she watched Razel sneaking on the railings above and hoping to get a good position before attacking Sam. Razel's nose twittered at the smell of demonic blood that now filled Sam's being. Sam was strong, yes, he thought, but not invincible.

It would only take one leap and a swift movement to snap his neck.

"Your destiny is to lead us all," Lilith screeched, hoping to distract him long enough.

"My destiny?" Sam questioned. Sam's head swam with pain, memories of Dean and his failure bringing tears to his eyes. "What about Dean's destiny? Was he supposed to die at the hands of some power hungry troll like you?"

The grip Sam held on Lilith's neck forced an unnatural flow of black blood to fall from her eyes. She couldn't respond.

"Well, I say screw destiny. You did this. Now you're going to fix him."

Lilith's eyes drew up to watch Razel quietly leap from his hiding space above. However, his fall was immediately broken by an invisible wind that caught him halfway down and hurled him into side of the metal vat. His crippled body convulsed and soon lay lifeless on the floor next to the dented metal tub.

Lilith recoiled in newfound fear as she hadn't even seen Sam move a muscle. Sam barely even breathed, the only movement coming from the drops of blood that cascaded down his arms and sizzle as they touched concrete.

"Now, Lily," Sam said, bringing his face dangerously close to hers, "Fix him."

END.

**So what did you think? I just wanted to put the image of Sam falling into blood out there. Call me twisted LOL. Hope you had fun and remember, reviews are bloody awesome!! *giggle***


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